INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill will not be criminally charged in the
alleged drunken groping of a state lawmaker and three legislative staffers
at a party this year because it would be too difficult to prove a case
against him, a special prosecutor said Tuesday.

Special prosecutor
Daniel Sigler said he considered bringing misdemeanor battery charges
against Hill, a Republican, but that witnesses gave varying accounts of what
happened in the Indianapolis bar during a March 15 party to mark the end of
the legislative session.

“The setting of
this lent itself to problems prosecuting,” Sigler said at a news conference
in Indianapolis. “It was in a bar. It was in the early morning hours. Free
alcohol was being served and flowing.”

Hill’s private
attorney Kevin Betz did not immediately respond to a call from The
Associated Press seeking comment on the decision.

A confidential
legislative memo leaked to the media revealed the four women’s allegations
against Hill. Three of the women soon went public, including Democratic Rep.
Mara Candelaria Reardon, who described Hill’s behavior as “deviant” when she
encountered him in the early morning hours.

She said Hill
leaned toward her, put his hand on her back, slid it down and grabbed her
buttocks. The Munster lawmaker says she told Hill to “back off,” but he
approached again later in the night, put his hand on her back and said:
“That skin. That back.”

In his report on
the investigation released Tuesday, Sigler said there was not sufficient
evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt “that Hill’s intent in the
touching was rude, insolent or angry,” as required for a battery conviction.

In the report,
which includes interviews with 56 witnesses, Sigler noted that Hill didn’t
deny the touching occurred, but that he justified it as “incidental ... in
the crowded bar” and “not intended to be disrespectful, sexual in nature or
rude.”

Sigler said he
found the allegations from the four women credible and that he believed Hill
drank a “significant” amount of alcohol that night. But he said prosecuting
Hill would be tough because several weeks passed before the allegations were
raised.

“I did believe
them,” he told reporters. “Nonetheless, I decided I didn’t think I could
meet my burden” of proof.

Sigler, who was
appointed in July to determine if charges should be brought against Hill,
also said he didn’t see any benefit to a potentially lengthy and expensive
prosecution.

“This would be a
drawn out, complicated - legally and factually - case that would last a
long, long time,” he said. “The victims would be put through a heck of a
lot. It would be a tough, tough case to prove.”

Hill, who was
elected to a four-year term in 2016, has publicly denied he groped the women
and rejected calls from Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb and legislative leaders
to resign.

Indiana’s
constitution allows for a public official to be removed from office, “for
crime, incapacity or negligence” either by “impeachment by the House of
Representatives, to be tried by the Senate,” or by a “joint resolution of
the General Assembly” with two thirds voting in favor.

But there’s debate
whether that applies to Hill, because the attorney general - unlike the
state auditor, treasurer and secretary - is not specifically listed as a
“state officer” in the constitution.

The Legislature
could impeach him “for any misdemeanor in office” under a different Indiana
law. But that would likely require criminal charges or a conviction - a
higher threshold than the “incapacity or negligence” standard in the
constitution.

Legal observers
have suggested that Hill could be removed from office if he is found to have
violated the state court’s code of professional conduct.

Hill will need to
be nominated by the Republican Party at the state party convention before he
can run for office again in 2020.